


A Hundred Cases and Crimes

by Leonawriter



Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Gen, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-22
Updated: 2014-11-22
Packaged: 2018-02-26 15:31:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2657129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leonawriter/pseuds/Leonawriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This'll be where I'll be putting any of my 100 prompt challenge fics for these/this fandom. Some may be gen with emphasis on friendship, some may have romance stuff, some might be left open to interpretation. I hope you enjoy!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Freaking Out

“Shut up! _Shut up!_ Don’t- _don’t talk with his voice_!”

Aoko was pounding against his chest, and internally all he wanted to do was run away from it, or hold her close and tell her it’d all be all right, but right now they didn’t have the _time_.

And speaking of-

_“Kuroba-kun, if you’re going to move, you’d best do it now. They’ve been distracted by something on the first floor. I’d estimate you have approximately forty-three seconds, so be quick.”_

Hakuba’s voice was hushed and rushed; he had a feeling those guys in black that were after Pandora had a hand in the goings on in the museum, and for all anyone else knew right now, Kaitou Kid had stolen Kuroba Kaito’s phone.

Which was still on, and still on the line, and if he had the time, he’d have talked his way out of this – but he didn’t have time, and Aoko had seen him as Kid respond to a call from Hakuba as Kaito.

And Hakuba was talking to him as only one who suspected, with only a vague slither of doubt that he wasn’t Kid, could. And besides, Hakuba knew that even as Kuroba Kaito, he had skills as a magician and the brilliant idiocy to use them.

“Oi, Aoko! Aoko, would you- would you be _quiet?”_

“Maybe Aoko will if you stop pretending to _be my friend!”_

“Hm…. Sorry, can’t make promises I don’t intend to keep! Besides, you need to _let go of my cloak.”_

“Not when I’ve caught you like this, I’m not! I don’t care what you think you’re trying to do – first you make a mockery of my dad, and now you’re using Kaito! You’ll be dragging him in all of this, is that what you want?”

He swallowed, hard.

“Aoko? _Aoko_ …”

Sounds came from the phone, the line still open, and then a beeping tone as the call cut off.

Kaito swore, shocking Aoko for just a moment – only a moment was needed, even if it wasn’t the distraction he’d have planned himself.

The show was late. Kaitou Kid was overdue an appearance.

“Sorry, Aoko,” he said more to himself than to her as he disappeared in her arms and ran to set the stage. He had his classmates’ safety to steal back.


	2. Immortality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death apparently decided that it wanted none of them. Each found their own way, mainly by accident, of making that more or less permanent.

It had happened to each of them, in its own way. Fate had a habit of interfering, and butting its head in where it wasn’t needed or wanted. Kaito would feel guilty, but there was – as the others often reminded him, over the years – nothing to be guilty of, since none of it was his fault.

Kudo, in a way, had been the first. But they’d only found out later. When he stopped ageing after a certain point, and they couldn’t call it his growth spurt coming on slowly in the second time around because he was twenty now, and he still looked no older than seventeen.

There was only so much they could do for it. Kudo grumbled and brooded just as he would even much, much later, but in the end he simply said, when it was brought up, that at least he wasn’t eternally stuck at the age of _seven_.

Kaito had been next, although they’d figured him out first. It hadn’t been hard.  One minute he was holding Pandora up to the full moon, the next he was being shot at, and he’d barely had time to secrete the gem inside his jacket.

In the fight-and-run chase that had ensued, he’d been shot and scraped enough that it would have been more impressive if he _hadn’t_ had the gem rub against bare skin at some point. As it was, it’d had to be cleaned to have flecks of blood taken off, the original shine and clarity given back. That had happened days later, though, since that night Kaito had crawled halfway to Jii’s place and collapsed in an alleyway, the thick dark cloth he often used to disguise himself when people were looking for something _white_ obscuring him from sight and hiding his throbbing head from the sunlight.

He’d woken up the next night with fangs and a thirst for blood. After the first week or so once the major panic had worn off, it wasn’t so bad. Even then, he’d had a fun time masking his fear and worry over his own transformation and needs by making life even stranger and his pranks even wilder for heists and classroom alike.

He’d perfected the art of taking blood without causing undue harm in a few years. Half a century later, he’d find out the original tale of the Pandora gem – a relic from a myth, a fairy tale really, of a man who had so wished to bring his daughter back to life that he’d made a deal with a goddess.

It did a lot to explain why the gem wouldn’t break, no matter what he tried. It was a good thing that they were able to bring both heads of the organisation down even without destroying the thing they’d most sought after.

Hattori’s case was simple, compared to the rest of them. Only slightly weirder Hakuba’s, although that wasn’t saying much. The Western detective had fallen afoul of a mountain god while on a case – he and Kazuha had both been affected, and they compared it to being handcuffed together again, although this time there wasn’t the embarrassment of no longer having any personal space.

The occasional appearance of horns and a tail weren’t that bad, really, if a bit inconvenient. It did mean he had to watch his temper a bit more, though. He also ended up aging to something more normal, but he was sorely disappointed to realise that age had no impact on length of lifespan.

Hakuba, Kaito would find the most amusing of them all. Akako was a witch, after all, and there were plenty of legends about how human or not human witches were.

The two had become a pair during their last years at high school. They were together during the time when Kaito had been turned into a vampire, and provided advice to a still fuming Hattori.

There were a lot of legends of what happened when a witch fell for a boy and seduced him, plenty of stories of what happened when the man realised what was happening and betrayed her, but nothing in the history of Akako’s family to say what happened when magic was unnecessary.

They had thought things were normal enough, for a witch and her husband. But ‘normal’ had an odd standard by the time they were married, and it was clear things weren’t when they were turning fifty and still looked shy of thirty.

Which, essentially, made seven of them, when one Haibara Ai was included in the count.

What a perfect number.

Kuroba Kaito, known by countless other names over the centuries, let the outdated cape flutter in the wind behind him, and wondered how many more years he’d see, and how many empires would rise and fall before the world decided that Kaitou Kid was no longer needed.

Hopefully, a lot longer.

He enjoyed entertaining the children.


	3. Haunted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Haunted' was not what Kudo Shinichi would call it, if forced into honesty. 'Irritated' would, however, be on the list.

Kudo Shinichi would never say he was _haunted._ That was completely absurd, out of the question – Holmes himself hadn’t believed in ghosts. Therefore he wouldn’t either. There were enough odd occurrences – Kaitou Kid included – in this world, without adding otherworldly things into the mix as well.

That didn’t mean odd things didn’t happen. Just that he hadn’t found a good, proper and logical, explanation for them yet.

He still hadn’t found an explanation for why he sometimes heard the voices of people who shouldn’t be talking at all. Shouldn’t be able to. Shouldn’t be _alive_.

Sometimes it was as small as a quick ‘thank you’ that he could ignore.  Sometimes it was a bit harder to ignore, when they started ranting and raving and he had to pretend that the growing headache he was getting was the result of the investigation – and later on, the effect such things would have on a ‘little kid’.

He did start noticing some patterns, though.

Miyano Akemi, for example. She’d never gone off to wherever these voices and visions disappeared to once they were done with bothering him.  He didn’t always hear her, but when he did, it was usually around Haibara.

It made the shock and grief of her death, something he hadn’t been able to prevent, much less painful on his end when she still commented on what her little sister looked at nowadays.

The other major pattern was that he’d lost count of the number of times he’d started to chase Kid and found that it’d just been some sort of illusion, and that the real Kid was now several corridors away, and now he had two of them laughing in his ears, one not knowing he had a partner in crime.

It infuriated him to the point of wanting to kick the living one in the head with a ball and tell him to get the other one to _stop_ , but he didn’t think the current Kid would appreciate it very much.


	4. Sticks and Stones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one… when I saw the prompt I had this vague idea, based on the phrase ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me’, as well as the idea that Kaito is a very good actor and Saguru is… really not used to having actual friends. The following is the result.

Saguru believed a great deal in the power of words. Words shaped things, and people, and a great many meanings could be hidden inside of them – such as, for example, a Kid heist notice.

Except that this wasn’t a Kaitou Kid heist. This was one of his own cases, one where people had died, and Kuroba – no, _Kid_ , right now, he could see white in there – was talking to the main suspect in the room he’d been about to go in, to investigate evidence.

He’d taken Edogawa-kun and, grudgingly, Hattori-kun’s words to heart, from that one case. He’d gone in with an open mind, extricating the idea that the perpetrator was also the thief of a priceless necklace early on. The two crimes, it had turned out, were unconnected.

He realised that for fact only now, of course, as Kid talked to the man who’d murdered two others in the museum already. His heart jumping wildly as he listened – Kid, if he wasn’t careful, could end up _dead_ , could end up with a red stain on that white suit, and he’d never see Kuroba in class again.

He wanted, oh _gods_ did he want to just slide in there and place handcuffs on the man while he was distracted, but he had to have faith that Kid knew what he was doing.

 _“Oh, come on,”_ the man was saying, something rushed in his tone, something unbalanced and close to hysteria. _“Don’t tell me you actually_ like _them?!”_

_“They’re detectives. Critics. You could say that they’re fun to play with.”_

Kid’s voice was smooth as silk, as calm as Kuniyoshi’s _wasn’t_.

And he was playing the man. Saguru could tell just by listening. Kid was perfect at it, and at luring the audience into believing what he wanted.

_“They’re dangerous. They’ll put you behind bars one of these days, or they’ll betray you, and then where’ll you be, huh?”_

_“Well, according to you, behind bars. But don’t worry about me – it’s not as if I trust them. That’s what you’re worried about, isn’t it? A good magician keeps his secrets safe.”_

_“Good, good…”_

The man started to pace, before stopping again abruptly.

_“How do I know you’re not lying to me? You said earlier, about that Hakuba-!”_

_“I have a reputation to uphold,”_ Kid was saying, voice suddenly cold, Saguru wondering what had happened, wondering when and why his name had come up, “ _It’d be messy if anything happened to ruin it, wouldn’t you agree? That detective means nothing more to me than any of the others.”_

Saguru breathed out, counting from one to ten in his head, missing the next part of the ‘conversation’.

A quick look earlier had shown him that the man’s back was to the door, and a second’s glance now showed him that this hadn’t changed. There was nothing else he could do here. Other than going back to the area where most of the investigation was taking place, where the lead detective on the case was.

He’d need to get past the door to get there, though – something that he had a chance at the next time the culprit started to speak. He slipped past, paying more attention to keeping himself silent and unseen than to what was being said, and went to warn the others that Kaitou Kid must have been staking the museum out for a heist, as he’d been spotted and seemed to have some sort of plan.

Saguru _hoped_ there was some kind of plan involved.

It took a while for it to unfold. The police were lead around on what at first seemed like a goose chase, until it turned out that they’d actually been collecting evidence all along.

Kuniyoshi was cornered and arrested in due course, with no further fatalities. Although that said, Saguru was sure that he never wanted to feel the touch of a knife against him ever again.

On arrest, the man had been indignant and outraged, apparently having some sort of delusions against detectives as a whole, saying that he’d been lied to again.

Kuroba, with an icepack on his head, had smiled, bitterly.

“You trusted a thief, Kuniyoshi-san,” the magician had said in a serious tone Saguru had only rarely heard. “Thieves are criminals just like any other, even that one. They lie.”

He’d been silent in the car on the way back home, enough so that baaya had asked if something was wrong. He’d told her that he was simply stewing over one last detail of the case. To a point, he wasn’t even wrong.

His mind kept wandering back to that overheard conversation in the museum. Lies upon lies, just to get the desired outcome, he _knew_ that, and yet-

He found himself pouring all of his attention into science journals in the Hakuba library all the way into the small hours. He’d get over it. He would.

What was it his mother had said, back in England?

_“Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you. And they won’t, if you don’t let them. You’re strong, and smart. You shouldn’t let such things bother you.”_

Back then, he’d listened and carried on, ignoring the words and fending off anything more physical until it was simply reduced to stares. Stares, he could deal with, because at least then they weren’t a distraction.

He was brought out of his thoughts by a cold breeze, the wind turning the page of the book for him. He looked up, the closest windows being several levels off the ground, and wasn’t surprised to see a white figure waiting there, clothes and cape moving in the wind, one gloved hand on the window frame and the other on his hat, ostensibly to make sure that it didn’t fly off, or at least so he’d think if it wasn’t Kid.

“And to what do I owe the honour of this visit?”

He could have sworn. His tone had been far colder than he’d been aiming for.

Kid jumped, using the bookshelves and stair rails as landing platforms to bounce off of until he reached ground level equal to Saguru himself.

“Given that I’m well aware you overheard certain choice words during my performance earlier? An apology, Hakuba-san.”

Saguru blinked.

“I don’t quite understand. There’s nothing to apologise for.”

Kid smiled, and he was reminded of Kuroba earlier. The mouth moved, but there was no real mirth in it.

“Perhaps so, but I fear that even though I had not planned to take anything tonight, an unwitting theft may have taken place. And it would be unbefitting of me not to return what has been stolen, would it not?”

“You’re a thief,” Saguru said flatly, wishing that he could go back to his books, his logic, his science, for just one night. He’d feel better in the morning, with the chance for sleep and coffee. “Generally speaking, stealing is what thieves do. Even ones like yourself.”

Kid put a gloved hand to his heart.

“You wound me, my dear detective.”

“ _Me?_ Wound _you_? Don’t you think that’s a little rich after what happened earlier?”

He hadn’t meant his tone to be quite so acerbic, or for the words to fall out so easily. It certainly didn’t help that the thief’s poker face was kept in place, as emotionless in the face of it all as if this really was simply one more performance to play.

“I don’t know why I care. In the end, you’re still going to end up arrested, and when that happens, none of this will so much as matter. The only reason why I’m not finishing the job here and now is that you’re owed at least a little leeway after the help earlier, and that this is my family’s library, and I do _not_ want it damaged or affected by your attempts to escape.”

The thief spent the entire time watching him, which only served to put Saguru further on edge. A few moments passed after he’d finished speaking, presumably to assure that he had, in fact, finished.

And then, he was treated to a slight bow, the shadows of the top hat now completely obscuring Kid’s face.

“Vulnerability is something most unbefitting for a thief of my calibre, Hakuba-san,” he said, leading Saguru to snort. “But perhaps a small blow to my pride could be allowed, in order to inform you that if I had such due cause to say harmful words to ensure your safety again in the future, I shall endeavour to find alternate means. My detectives, _Hakuba-san_ , do not mean as little to me as that.”

He wasn’t sure how Kid got back out – probably the same way he’d broken in, even with the state of the art security in place – and he didn’t really care. He found himself staring at the spot the thief had been in, knowing that he’d have to face Kuroba at school the next day.

He sunk into the large armchair with a sigh, and drew up his knees to his chest, wondering when someone’s opinion of him had become so important.


End file.
